Morphological and physiological responses of dual purpose wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) to nitrogen and seed rates: A review

Growing human population at alarming rate has forced the decline in fallow land available for grazing leading to excessive pressure on fodder production for livestock existence. Growing crops for dual purpose i.e. both grains and fodder together may be a good option for reducing this burden. Wheat may be a better option to mitigate the shortage of grains as well as fodder. Many works have been carried out in this direction considering wheat but the production has been a limitation. Among various agronomical methods, modifications of fertilizers concentrations and seed rate are very crucial which affect yield. Nitrogen is one of major components of fertilizers which plays crucial role in crop growth influencing major physiology including photosynthesis, protein synthesis, nucleic acids synthesis etc. Seed rate is directly related to canopy expansion and solar radiation interception, thereby strongly influencing the use of environmental resources by changing relative importance of intra and interplant competition for light, water and nutrients during crop development and thereby affects wheat yield. Looking at the importance of the issue, this review was carried out to get the information about the effect of seed rates and nitrogen levels on the forage and grain yield of dual purpose wheat genotypes for enhanced productivity.